Tufting machines are used in the manufacture of various textile products. A tufting machine typically receives multiple yarns that are used by the tufting machine to create loops or tufts in a backing material. In many tufting machines, each of multiple adjacent needles uses a thread of yarn to tuft a row of tufts in the backing material. Because many such needles may require different yarns simultaneously, many tufting machines require that multiple yarns be fed into or otherwise received by the tufting machine at relatively the same time. However, some fabric patterns utilize yarns of differing lengths, with the result that tufting machines producing such patterns require yarns feeding into the machine at different rates. If yarns are to be used at different rates in the tufting process, the yarns may be supplied from a creel or other structure that can supply different yarn ends at different rates.
A header assembly may be used to feed the various yarns through the tufting machine or other equipment. It is important that the yarns be properly aligned so that the relative positions of the yarns are fixed before they feed into the tufting machine. In some instances, the yarns also need to be aligned in areas remote from the tufting machine, such as at the creel or other structures such as a beam. There is also sometimes a need to align the yarns at a burn rack or other splicing device, which can be used to attach the ends of yarns feeding off of a creel to ends of yarns already feeding into the tufting machine.
Some header assemblies include a stationary header associated with the creel or other structure such as a beam and a detachable header. Both the stationary header and detachable headers have holes through which multiple yarn ends extend. The positioning of the holes of the detachable header allows for the bulk transfer of aligned yarns from one location (such as the creel or beam) to another location by moving the detachable header along with the threads that are aligned through its holes. In some processes, all of the yarns are positioned on a creel so that they extend through individual holes in the stationary header as well as individual holes in the detachable header so that the detachable header may be removed and used to transfer the yarn ends to another location, such as to a burn rack or other splicing device for attachment to the tufting machine yarns.
Passing yarn through the holes of the stationary header and the holes of the detachable header has generally been time consuming and inefficient. For example, for each yarn bobbin or package, the process may require manually inserting the yarn end into a small plastic tube coupled to the holes of the stationary header and using an air “gun” and compressed air to blow the yarn through the tube until the yarn end projects from the other end of the tube, for example, through one of the holes of the stationary header. In some cases, the tube extends through the holes of the stationary header. As such, the holes of the stationary header have to be large enough to accommodate each of the tubes. Typically, the holes of the stationary header were thus required to be so large that all of the holes could not be fit widthwise across the stationary header in a single, horizontal row. Instead, the holes in each row had to be staggered across the width of the stationary header. Moreover, the holes typically formed several rows. In contrast, detachable headers traditionally have only a single horizontal row of holes because it was believed that a single row allowed for better alignment with the burn rack or other splicing device. As such, to feed the yarn ends from the stationary header through the detachable header, the stationary header had to be positioned remote from the detachable header and each strand of yarn had to be manually fed from the holes of the stationary header into the holes of the detachable header. This process was time consuming, tedious, and also error prone, as yarn ends coming from a particular hole of the stationary header were often inadvertently fed into in the wrong hole of the detachable header.
Once the yarn ends were so positioned through the one or more header assemblies (through the stationary and detachable headers), they could then be attached to existing yarns already feeding into a tufting machine or other device. In some instances, the yarns could be transferred in bulk by moving the detachable header away from the stationary header associated with the creel or other device to a burn rack or other splicing device. The burn rack or other splitting splicing device could then be used to attach the yarns feeding through the detachable header to existing yarns already feeding into a tufting machine. It is important to align the yarns from the detachable header properly with the yarns feeding into the tufting machine. Thus, the process of aligning yarns from the detachable header with the burn rack or other splicing machine is time consuming and error prone.
Moreover, because different tufting machines have different gauges (and thus each accommodate a different number of yarn ends), a specific header assembly having a specific number of holes has been typically provided for use with a specific tufting machine having a gauge that corresponds to the specific number of holes in the header assembly. Because the stationary header is typically permanently or semi-permanently affixed to a creel, the use of that particular creel has typically been limited to a tufting machine having a gauge that corresponds to the number of holes on the stationary header. As a result, tufting machines and creels sometimes remain idle until a creel with a header assembly having a sufficient number of holes is available for use with a tufting machine having a gauge that corresponds to that sufficient number of holes.